The Minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise V. Senthil Balaji participated in the conference of Power ministers organised by the Union Ministry of Power, which was held in New Delhi on Tuesday, and put forth seven demands for improving the financial situation of Tangedco. Mr. Balaji also presented a memorandum to Union Power Minister Manohar Lal.
In the memorandum, Mr. Balaji citing the huge annual interest commitment of ₹16,000 crore paid by the Electricity department, requested the Union Power minister to intervene for reducing the interest rates to 8% charged by the Power Finance Corporation (PFC) for helping in improving the financial and operational performance.
The Electricity Minister the State has taken several steps under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) which has helped in bringing down the aggregate technical and commercial loss to 11.26% and wanted the Union Government to not impose new conditions for RDSS scheme grants, including unilateral fixing of targets for PM Surya Ghar - Muft Bijli Yojana.
Mr. Balaji also requested for giving approval for the System Modernisation works, for which a proposal had already been submitted to the Ministry of Power. He also wanted a single and unified renewable power obligation (RPO) to be implemented, rather than categorising the States based on specific sources of wind or hydro and the power generated from the offshore windmills may be given to Tamil Nadu through State connectivity instead of Central connectivity.
Published - November 12, 2024 07:21 pm IST
